This lady controller mentioned twice already in this thread....didn't have a career spanning Stansted, Manc, Edinburgh did she??? 'Cos if she did....
Picture the scene. Edinburgh on r/w 06, and r/w 12 is unavailable due to a D328 parked on the 30 threshold. The SID to the south for turboprops is Talla 4D from r/w 06. R/w 12 also has a Talla SID, the 5G. The names may have changed by now but this was a few years back.
Lady of a certain age tower trainee departs a jet from the full length of 06 and then lines up a SF34 from the intersection despite a jet being on about 4 mile final. OJTI asks "what's the vortex wake requirement for a SF34 departing behind a full-length 737?" Trainee replies "2 minutes". OJTI asks, "are you sure???"
Lady trainee says something unrepeatable on realising there's a 3-minute vortex wake requirement and transmits to the SF34 "backtrack 06 and expedite", and this when they've already lined up and are now facing the wrong way to backtrack.... They do a 180, see the traffic bearing down on them and backtrack at a speed normally reserved for descent at full throttle.
Meanwhile, lady trainee says to the incoming (in this situation, incoming is more appropriate than arriving) jet, "continue approach, expect very late go around", without a trace of irony.
Next, when something approaching 2 minutes have passed since the first departure, and despite the fact that the SF34 crew have ended their backtrack well short of the full length, lady trainee says "cleared for immediate take-off, and take up the Tall 4G departure." Now, ignoring for a moment that they still really needed 3 minutes, and that changing a SID while rolling is not exactly the best time, there's those little facts that......
a) there weren't no such thing as a Tall 4G departure!!!
b) given that she meant the Talla 5G, you can't fly a r/w 12 SID when departing from r/w 06.
c) r/w 12 departures, and thus anything on the Talla 5G departure, need a release from radar.
So, there I am in the radar room, blissfully unaware of all that's happening upstairs when I hear a turbprop whooshing past the tower as if departing r/w 12. Me and the assistant look at one another with shocked expressions for a couple of seconds, then I ask him to take a peek out the window and see if r/w 12 is still blocked. Yup, still blocked. Then the phone from TWR rings...
Half an hour later the TWR OJTI comes down on a break and says "I'm so, so ****ing sorry!!!" Lady trainee did not validate.